Yasmani Grandal had a RARE, but PRODUCTIVE season in 2021

By Juan Páez

The second season of Yasmani grandal with the Chicago White Sox it was uniquely memorable. Although he had rare points, it was another productive harvest for the Whiteleg catcher, who appeared in 93 games in the 2021 campaign with the team coached by Tony La Russa and suffered a weight injury midway through the regular round.

Grandal’s stat sheet is for delighting and laughing at the ironies of baseball. If you tell us the catcher hit just .240, we’ll tell you he had an on-base average of .420 —that mark would have been the third-highest in the majors if the islander had taken the necessary plate appearances to appear between departments of averages. If you tell us you struck out 82 times in 93 games, we’ll tell you that he walked 87.

In fact, Yasmani’s ability to passport was so great that he tied a record shared by Babe Ruth and Bryce Harper for the most transfers in a four-game span. The reason is that, between May 1 and May 8, he took out 13 tickets. With that amount, in addition to being next to Ruth and Harper, he broke the historic record of the White Sox, held by Jim Thome (2007) and Eddie Collins (1915), both with 11 free bases in four games.

Walk on, Yaz. 👏 pic.twitter.com/th1Z8gwv1X

– Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) May 9, 2021

But that is not all. The most impressive thing about what Grandal did in the 2021 Major League campaign is the frequency with which he got extra-base hits. In just 279 legal turns with the club, the mask hit nine doubles and removed 23 balls from the park. Almost half of his indisputable hits were hits from two or more pads: 32 of 67. That gives him a whopping 48% percentage, the highest of his career. Such 48% is the ninth highest for an American League hitter, only that Grandal racked up just 375 total trips to the plate.

The reason for his low number of appearances in the batting box is that he was out between July 6 and August 27 with a left knee injury, which forced him to undergo surgery in the middle of the harvest.

Grandal, the Cuban who earned the most in 2021, completed his performance with 62 RBIs, 60 scored and an offensive line of .240 / .420 / .520 / .939. That slugging percentage and his .939 OPS are the highest for him in any of his 10 major league seasons.

The backstop appears to be becoming an elite hitter, a slugger who continues to hone his boxing discipline and become a more dangerous lumberjack. This season not only did he improve his walking (23.2%) and strikeout (21.9%) percentages, but he also had unprecedented records in home runs. His home run percentage per plate appearances (6.1%) and his frequency of home runs per at-bat on average (12.1 VB / HR) were the highest records of his career.

In the postseason, Grandal again failed to implement his success from the regular round. Although he homered and drove in four runs against the Houston Astros in the American League Division Series, he only had a pair of hits in 14 valid chances.

The 2022 campaign will be the penultimate of a four-year, $ 73 million deal. Grandal’s challenge will be to be able to spend more time on the pitch, get away from injuries and try to repeat or improve his statistics from 2021.